As the subject of this partial biography, Lewis is the book’s main figure. He was born in Alabama in 1940 and grew up on a farm with his parents and nine siblings. A serious young man from an early age, he drew inspiration from the religion he found at two local churches he attended. Meacham describes how Lewis emulated the role of minister back on the farm in taking care of the family’s chickens (his “flock”). He practiced preaching to them and held baptisms and funerals. This interest in religion was the foundation for his philosophy in the civil rights movement and later in his life, and it also led him to attend a Baptist seminary for college.

At the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Lewis put his religiosity into practice as he learned about the peaceful, passive resistance strategies of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He soon joined some of the activities of the burgeoning civil rights movement to try to desegregate facilities in the South. He had become acutely aware of racial discrimination early on in his home state and, at age 11, learned about a different way of life when his uncle took him on a trip to the integrated city of Buffalo, New York.